Chasing a capacitor ghost for 6 hours on a 2015 Samsung TV

Had a Samsung UN55JU6700 come in with no power. Checked the obvious stuff, fuse was fine, standby voltage looked okay. Spent 6 hours swapping parts and testing before finding a bulged capacitor hiding under a heatsink. Anyone else spend way too long on something that should have been a quick fix?

2 comments

2 Comments

faithb761mo ago

Bulged capacitor hiding under a heatsink" is the exact kind of thing that makes you want to throw your multimeter across the room. Samsung's been getting real tricky with their board layouts in that 2015 vintage, they're stuffing those heatsinks so low over the caps that you can't even see a shadow of a bump unless you practically bend it. I had a similar model where the discoloration was only visible from a specific angle with a flashlight, and I wasted a whole afternoon before I just started pulling heatsinks on every board that came in. It's like they knew we'd be looking for that stuff but still made it a pain to find.

roses691mo ago

@faithb76 bet they did it on purpose so you'd just give up and buy a new set instead of fixing it. Cap placement is half the battle with these newer boards, the hiding spots are getting insane.